


metal rain in the estersand

by argle_fraster



Category: Final Fantasy XII
Genre: Gen, Post-Game, legit cactoid fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-08
Updated: 2013-05-08
Packaged: 2017-12-10 19:21:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,099
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/789241
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/argle_fraster/pseuds/argle_fraster
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Estersand has a cycle of life all its own, but few things stranger than a Hume falling down with debris have happened in it recently.</p>
            </blockquote>





	metal rain in the estersand

**Author's Note:**

  * For [kurushi](https://archiveofourown.org/users/kurushi/gifts).



> Dear Kurushi, I hope you enjoy this, as you were a JOY to write for and I had a lot of fun with your prompt. Thanks for actually asking for cactoid fic!
> 
> Written for this prompt: I cry every time I re-play the cactoid side-quests. You could also just write cactoid stories for me.

In the yellow-capped dunes of the Estersand, where the granules abut the ridges that form rocky fingers stretching out towards the Mosphoran Highwaste, the clusters of red blooms grow next to the sheer dropping cliff sides in tangled, bunched formations. The petals are only unfolded for a short period of time, and during this time, the cactoids can feel the pulse of them through the sand, through the undercurrent that ebbs beneath the piles of dust that stir and settle with the wind.

This is the best time of the year; when the flowers are in bloom, the air smells sweeter, and the water - to be found beneath the dunes, in tiny pockets and bubbles, untapped by the Hume population - is infinitely more refreshing.

One of them, a female called Buun, scurries up one of the large, sloping heaps and then swims down the other side, because the call of the wind has changed sharply and she wants to know why. The storms are not due to roll in for a few weeks, but already, the tang of the desert has changed; she can feel it in her spindles, the part that connects her with the rest of the life in the barren wasteland of sweltering heat and oppressive sun.

Scattered in the dunes are pieces of metal - debris from the Humes, from up above, that has found its way to their home and begun to sink into the granules themselves as the wind sweeps unrelenting across its smooth surfaces. Buun has half a mind to ignore it completely, for it will soon be buried by the Estersand itself and forgotten, but there is something else among the metal that makes her pause - something breathing.

She does not know much of the Humes, save for the few that traipse through the desert and make their lives on the banks of the river, but she does not think they have yet created metal that can live and breathe like creatures. She waits a long moment, to see if the action was a fluke, and when she still feels the pulse of life - faint, and muted, like a flower that is about to fold in on itself and flutter apart - she begins moving through the sands to get a closer look.

It's a Hume. He seems injured; at least, that is what she thinks must be the case with the crimson flow that is coming from several parts of him, half-staunched by the dunes but no doubt life-threatening. And she knows this scent. She remembers this Hume.

_Wake up!_ she says to him, desperately, and knows that it is a lost cause, for he wouldn't understand her speech even if he was awake. Then she lingers, because the desert is asking her to do something about the mess that has landed in its lap, and she should heed its call.

She goes to get the others. The Estersand, too, has a debt to repay, and she is determined to see it through.

\--

_He may not pull through the night,_ Buun's mother says. She had wanted to move the Hume to the village, because the other Humes would know better how to heal the angry, jagged bits of flesh that dot his form, but he is too unstable.

Buun's mother is worried; they need to keep the Hume alive. Buun thinks of Dran, off running around the Estersand again, and knows they must do this in order to keep things as they were. She inches closer to the Hume's battered body and wonders if there isn't more they can do.

_Get sweetwater from the flowers,_ Buun's mother tells her, and lays several large-ridged leaves across the still-bleeding parts. The leaves will try and soak out any infection, but they will not work alone. _Bring as much as you can._

It will be hard to carry more, because Buun's fleshy insides are still storing water for when the dry season comes and it is so scarce they must go weeks without it. Still, she scuttles off, determined to find some of the still-blooming red flowers and hope they will part with a bit of their own hard-earned and treasured moisture.

At least the Hume fell from the sky at a good time - in the storms, he would have been covered by the sand before anyone noticed him gone.

\--

The Hume is hot and flushed in the middle of the night.

He moans - he is not awake, but the fever that is ravaging his body must be creating things in his head - and Buun is unsure what to do. She can feel the sickness in his injuries; it was left too long in the sun and the sand, and she fears it will rot, like it will fester as desert fruits do when left on the branch too long in the sun.

She does not want him to die. Buun does not care for many Humes, but she feels she owes this one something, and so she shuffles a bit closer, drawing a bit more water through the pads of her spindle-covered paws. If she applies the water to the wounds, perhaps she can flush out the infection.

_Please hold on,_ she tells him, and knows he can't hear - he is too far gone, lost in dreams perhaps, but still, she tries. _You helped to save my bloom-brother. Please don't let go just yet._

Maybe her words have some effect. He stops thrashing so much, and she has a clear opening to continue tending the jagged cuts. She applies more ridge leaves to them, and chews on one of them to make it a paste. The paste will act faster than the leaf itself will. When she puts it on the torn skin, she makes sure to keep her spindles away from the already bruised flesh.

The Hume sighs a bit, the action sounding very tired.

_I will stay here with you,_ Buun promises him, determined to see the morning with both their lives still intact.

She does, too, until the sun breaks over the dune-dotted horizon and promises another day full of unending, unrelenting sunshine.

\--

Buun's mother is amazed when the Hume is still alive the next day. Amazed, but pleased, which Buun can feel through the sand under her feet.

_He's past the worst point,_ her mother tells her, as she lays on several discarded flower petals that she soaked in the clean water of the river - it took her all night to get there and back, and Buun was worried for her safety.

_I think he is dreaming,_ Buun says. _It sounds like nightmares._

She only knows what nightmares are because of the Humes in the river-side village; cactoids don't dream. But she has heard them talk of shadows and fear, of something that clenches their insides and turns them into small children again, and she thinks it must be what the Hume is going through now, caught between the fever and waking.

Buun's mother clicks her spindles together, admonishing. _That means he is still sick. We need more of the leaves._

Then her mother pauses, seeing the paste that Buun made from one of the ridge leaves in her mouth, crushed by her spines. There is a moment of nothing, and then Buun feels through the sand the wave of acceptance.

_This is good_ , her mother says. _This will help. We should dress all the wounds like this._

Buun leaves to find more ridge leaves, hoping she can stack them on her spindles and still scurry quickly enough across the sand to make it back before the sun gets at its highest overhead, and the air becomes unbearable to move in.

\--

That night, she is sure the Hume dreams again.

When she goes to put another round of paste-crushed leaves on the cuts, she finds that the swelling and redness is going down. The skin seems to be fusing together now, without the angry dotted bits of sickness at the edges - her mother will be happy. The Hume may not be able to move as he once did, but Buun thinks he will live.

She chews on another leaf, rolling it around until it is slick and malleable, and then coats the last wound with it.

"-falling," the Hume whispers.

_Yes,_ Buun replies, though his eyes are still closed and his brow is still furrowed; he can't hear her. _You fell from the sky with heaps of metal._

The Hume's head lolls to one side, lips parted slightly. "Falling," he repeats, a little louder, and then there is nothing. Buun hopes he does not have more nightmares.

\--

Finally, the Hume wakes.

He sees the shadows first, the area they have been keeping him in - it's covered by the few inky bits cast by the spindly trees that grow near the rock crevices, gnarled and bent. It was the coolest area they could find. He sees that, and his eyes focus, and then they sweep across and up until they settle on Buun herself.

"What," the Hume starts, and there doesn't seem to be anything else after that.

_You were injured_ , Buun says.

The Hume simply stares at her, unable to understand what she is saying. Her language is too hard for his ears, too high and unstable - it is made up of more than just sounds and rolls of the tongue. Cactoids speak in undercurrents and desert winds and the clink of spindles in rhythmic patterns.

But there is something she thinks is universal, and so Buun goes closer to him, slowly, to show that she is not a threat, and puts her paw against the largest, round, fleshy part of her body.

_Buun_ , she tells him.

The Hume shakes his head.

_Buun_ , she repeats, and then holds her paw out to him, for reciprocation. This, finally, the Hume seems to understand. His fingers tap out a nervous rhythm against his split, fractured vest.

"Balthier," he tells her. Buun isn't sure she can say those sounds - they are very foreign. She is thinking of how it could translate when the Hume sighs again, and closes his eyes. "Ffamran," he corrects.

_Ffamran_ , Buun repeats.

This, she can say.

\--

She is aware that the Hume must eat. His body is famished, healing from wounds, and she brings him fruit she finds at the outskirts of the desert, and a bit of fish she got from the Hume village. He eats it all eagerly, so quickly that juice runs down his fingers.

"Was there anyone else with me, when you found me?" he asks.

Buun shakes her head. There was only twisted metal, scorched and broken. He seems unhappy by her answer, but not surprised. He is a strange Hume, because he seems as broken as the debris he came down with, and yet here he is, still alive, having fought through the worst of it.

Buun wonders if they could learn something from Humes like this.

He looks at her again, nose line sharp against the bright sky behind him. "What's happened in Rabanastre since Bahamut fell?"

He will not understand her language. Buun thinks for a long moment on how she can communicate with him, and then picks up one of the few remaining red blooms they have collected. The flowers will be gone soon, scattered by the dusty wind, but they harvested what they could for use later.

She holds it out to him. _Ashe._

He does not seem to understand. Buun puts a paw against her belly, repeats her name, and then touches his hand with her spindles pointed out so not to tear his flesh. _Ffamran_.

She hands him the flower, putting the petals in his palm, and says again, _Ashe_.

Something in his face softens all at once, like sunset painting the dunes a soft shade of peach. He looks different now. He seems like something that might disappear with the faintest hint of wind, a Hume held together not with bones and skin, but with a complex web of tangled, painful things, still raw like the cuts littering his legs and yet as beloved as an oasis in a storm.

He cradles the flower. "Ashe," he says, and that is all.

\--

Buun watches him that night, while he sleeps. Eventually, he will be strong enough to leave, and she thinks she might miss him. There is an odd sort of attachment for this Hume who helped to bring back her brother - a connection of sorts, the kind that the desert creates without being asked to.

She watches, and wonders what he will do when he leaves.


End file.
